14 March 2011 – 14 March 2024, a birthday (¹) which does not fall round, but a performance worth saluting ! What was just a Startup in the early days of the use of tablets and smartphones in navigation is now a company with a long history (²). Dominique Gauthier, its founder and manager, has participated for more than ten years in securing our iPads by becoming the exclusive importer for France of the famous cases aiShell (Originally “iPad Case”). Designed and manufactured in Germany, Waterproof and robust properties that no longer need to be demonstrated, with a wide range of supports and accessories to meet all needs at sea. Read more …
Category : GPS
Connecting USB/Bluetooth GPS with Mac M1 [Update-2]
The arrival of Macs with Apple M1 processors and macOS systems 11 "Big Sur" and macOS 12 "Monterey" had caused disappointments among GPS users connected via USB and/or Bluetooth for their navigation applications..
In USB, Latest DriverProlific V.2.2.2 is now universal for GPS BU-353xx by GlobalSat. As for theGNS3000 (¹) in Bluetooth it always undergoes an instability of the interface for the connection of multiple devices, instability that unfortunately does not yet seem to be fully fixed. Read more …
Garmin offers Vesper Marine
Obviously Garmin® has long teeth ! After Active Captain up to Navionics charts, Garmin® has just announced the purchase of Vesper Marine, specialized in high-end AIS transponders (¹). Read more …
GNS 3000 Bluetooth GPS receiver for mobile
The new GNS 3000 announced by Global Navigation Systems since last spring is finally available (¹). It replaces the GNS 2000 More. Now equipped with a Bluetooth transmitter 5.0, it has an SD Card slot for recording position data continuously.
Compatible with Apple products, It caters mainly to non-GPS devices : iPod Touch and iPad WiFi all models. It can also be used with all PDAs, Bluetooth phones and tablets. It has a Li-Ion battery offering an autonomy of 10 continuous hours.
The accuracy of GPS [brief summer]
I'm always being asked - and have been for ages - how much confidence we can put in the GPS on our tablets and smartphones. At the risk of repeating myself, I persist in asserting that our mobile devices are provided with the most accurate GPS receivers that can be found in civilian use, especially for pleasure boating. Read more …
Apple finally ship GALILEO [Update]
Good news, a year after its appearance on the first smartphones (¹), Apple finally integrates a GNSS receiver chipset compatible GALILEO. The iPhone 8/8+ and soon iPhone X are now provided with the LTE X16 Snapdragon modem MDM9655 from Qualcomm company, which includes a multi-GNSS receiver : GPS (USA), GLONASS (Russia), GALILEO (Europe) and QZSS (Japan) (²). Confirmation was given to me by our friends at iFixit.
[Update 15/12/2017] The iPhone 6S and 7 are now compatible with Galileo signals.
BeiDou-3 China rushes its Global GPS
To date, the Chinese GPS satellite constellation BeiDou-2 covers only a part of East Asia and the Western Pacific. With the commissioning of GALILEO European GPS late 2016, the replacement scheduled of U.S. 2nd generation GPSII by the 3rd generation GPSIII, the launch of the 3rd generation of the Russian GLONASS-M satellites, China intends to catch up with global coverage forced march. Read more …
GALILEO and the Apple mobile
Within a month of the launch by Ariane 5 four new satellites of the GALILEO constellation to 18 satellites, manufacturers of components of location have already presented their new chips of location supporting the European GNSS. This allowed the Spanish company BQ to propose early September the first smartphone "Galileo-ready., equipped with the processorQualcomm Snapdragon 652, the Aquarius X 5 more.
We could expect to find the same chip in the iPhone 7 from Apple, that fitted for the iPad and iPhone 4S 3 all its mobile devices with Qualcomm communication processors, integrating GPS reception (US) and GLONASS (Russian), it is not. With this latest smartphone, Apple revives Broadcom, waived for 2012 to ensure these functions, by integrating a chip BCM47734.
GPS and iPad Wi - Fi + Cellular
Early January 2011 I wrote started the year in a bad mood (¹) After finding repeated incompetence of Apple sellers, during Christmas, concerning devices they sold, mainly iPad and iPhone. I note unfortunately as 5 years later, nothing has changed, it is to despair !
2016 Year of GALILEO
Since my first post on GALILEO end 2011 (¹), Europe's space has increased. Despite the economic uncertainties and many budgetary restrictions, Course and schedule have been maintained thanks to a community political flawless. This is to be welcomed because many other areas of European action didn't have the scoop.
The year 2016 has already been dubbed "the year of GALILEO".. This was the clear message of the Munich Satellite Navigation Summit (²) early March. The Munich Summit covered all GNSS systems, but this year focus was squarely on GALILEO. Read more …